Three Kids and a Corpse by Devin Rush - Short, Thriller - Twelve year old Kyle is in for a chilling surprise when he enlists the help of his friend Brad and a creepy homeless man to scare his little brother. 8 pages - pdf, format

Format wise it's clean except for a small line on page 4:

His beaming stare focuses directly on Tommy.
Tommy shakes his head “no”. He
breathes faster, and heavier.

Not sure what happened there.

Easy to follow and probably easy to shoot, but nothing groundbreaking.

From the style here, I get the feeling that this should be much better.

So there's no description of the kids ...
... and then you call one Tyler and one Tommy - just in case the lack of description didn't help enough.

... then we have Tommy fading behind - I'm guessing there's a little distance between them - until Tyler punches him in the arm - so there ain't.

Sorry, jumped out quite quick.

The second line of action on page 3-- You have "A devious grin crosses his lips."
You have Tommy speak right before this.
I would put that it's Brad's lips. Not a big thing, but slightly confusing.

At the bottom of page 4, you have "Tyler drops to his knees,".
Did you mean Tommy?

I thought it was really well written.
You had some great descriptions in there.
I figured that Rusty wasn't only pranking Tommy, but also Brad and Tyler.
Him turning out to be an actual murderer was a little strange. Not bad, but strange.

It was a quick read and I enjoyed it.

Hey Devin...
I *really* like the what you've created with this - it is really easy to visualise; and would film well - and cheaply, too.  I really *love* the ending (with Old Lady).  Your scene descriptions/actions are very clear (my "Art" hat on; not to be confused with my arse-hat).  

Anyone else see Rusty as Nick Nolte's character from "Down and Out in Beverly Hills"?

just some minor typo things (mostly weird, unrequired commas - is your software doing that?)... If there is supposed to be a pause; maybe try "(beat)" or "--"?

Sorry, I am a teacher, and I wanted my red pen several times...

p1:
-"KIDS take the streets" should be "KIDS take to the streets"
-comma may not be required: "...along, by the arm..."
-comma not required; "Tyler retracts his hand, and pushes on..."

p2:
- I like this description "...appropriately nicknamed, “Bad News Brad,”...", but I am interested in what others thought? (oh, no comma after "Brad", either)
- comma not required (and confusing): "You two, make a cute couple" -"What’s his problem?" consider proceeding with a parenthetical "(to Tyler)", even though that is clear and perhaps

p3:
-no comma required; "overgrowth, and broken-down"

p4:
-no comma required;"I’ll tell you, how he died."
-weird formatting occurance?"His beaming stare focuses directly on Tommy.
Tommy shakes his head “no”. He
breathes faster, and heavier.
RUSTY (CONT’D)
Because he was a snitch, Tommy.
Just like you."
-the "huge blade" in your description is later described by Rusty as a "rusty blade"; think of introducing important props like important characters; give more descripton - especially where it will be important to the story (remember someone has to build, create or age props; they should have to hunt through the script)
-no comma required;"pulls a huge blade from his overcoat, and
slowly brings it to Tommy’s stomach"

p5:
-no comma required; "Brad and Tyler, pound fists."
-no comma required; "Rusty holds it to the sun, to inspect its legitimacy."

p6:
-no commas required; "I’ll just clean this up, myself. I guess, I’ll just catch you boys around, then."
-no comma required; "Rusty pulls the blade from his pocket, and places himself
behind the old lady."

I know these are mostly minor; though important... I didn't want to just leave it at "Loved it", either... and i did... Love it...

I thought it was going to be some kind of dream, but you didn't take it in that direction. Instead you went a really weird route with Rusty being some kind of deranged serial killer. Odd way to end this short.

The format is decent, but there are errors that immediately jump out and take you out of the experience, they've been stated by others.

I just read this one again, and I have to say, I liked it better this time.
Not sure exactly what it is, but I just like the way this reads.
I has a little bit of an old school feel to it.

Hey Devin,

Let me start by saying that for some strange reason I liked the title and have been meaning to give this read for a few days now.

If you changed kids for men in the title then I think you’ve come across the title in a possible last movie in a trilogy film franchise starring Tom Selleck and that for some reason I found funny, I have a weird sense of humour when on a glass of red.

Now onto the story which I’m sorry to say I didn’t find very interesting at all. It just turns out to be a prank with a stupid twist of the homeless guy actually being the killer of the corpse if you can call it a twist, more like the bloody obvious if I’m honest.

I just found it random and lacking in all areas. Why should I care about these characters? Okay, you don’t always have to make people care for the protag or follow anybody’s individual story but what and who is this about?

Do I care about Tommy and his predicament? I never felt he was in danger because it was pretty obvious it was a set-up from the logline.

Should I hate Tyler and Brad for pranking him?

And what about the homeless guy or hobo if you like, what is he all about? He killed someone over 5 bucks? Seriously!
You telling me there isn’t another way to get 5 bucks? Dancing on the street, holding out a cup saying you were in the war, looking for a job! And what bum has people owing him money so he takes care of them like someone from the Corleone family?

Just didn’t work for me at all I’m afraid.

Also the writing could be better, I have no idea what happened on page 4 but you should look at it because it becomes all mashed up and hard to understand at one point.

The names, Tyler and Tommy are too similar and confusing IMO. I say this because I think you even got confused at one point, I’m sure the action or dialogue was mixed up at one point with Tyler when it should have been Tommy?

All in all I think this needs some more thought and work because it just isn’t working for me at the moment but that’s just me of course. A nice catchy title though which intrigued me to read it.

Good luck and keep writing.

Steve

Thank you all for the feedback. I apologize for submitting such a flawed script. I wrote it up in a couple hours and meant it I be a quick, fun read. I looked over it a couple times before submitting, then through it out for you all to critique. I will definitely go back and rework the story and logline. The feedback you guys gave will really help me with future projects. Younger siblings tend to tattle on every little thing their older siblings do. Tyler wanted to teach his little brother a lesson so he enlisted the help of his social deviant friend, Brad. He left it up to Brad to set the whole thing up, so he unknowingly hires a hobo that will do anything to make a quick buck. It's not that he had no other way to make money, I wanted him to seem desperate. He'd do anything to make a dollar. The other homeless man owing him money was me trying to make him somewhat human. Like he didn't do it just for the $5 but also to teach a lesson to the people that try to skip out on paying him. I haven't looked at the script since I submitted it about a month and a half ago, so I will rework it and resubmit it in the near future.

Thanks again for the feedback,
Devin Rush

It seems that you overuse commas, which made the read a tad difficult.  However, it's still a good read.  The end kinda meandered a bit with the old lady, but the idea of Rusty turning against the boys was a step in the right direction.  Also, Tommy and Tyler's names are too similar, and I got them confused quite a bit.

Good job!

Hey, Devin

I'm going to talk about some of the things I thought you did well, so you don't lose sight of them because sometimes people can forget what worked while trying improve their work. I thought all three character's had a distinct voice and by that I mean they each had the same attitudes through out. I didn't have to read who was talking just reading what they were saying and know who was speaking (now, of course this is harder to do in a feature).

I thought you did a good job of injecting subtext into the script which created some plot. All along Tyler and Brad had plotted to trick Tommy even before the story picks up where the story comes in at. Within that you through another surprise because of context that Rusty actually killed that guy. Both created revelation for the audience and character which is the gear to narrative drama.


Nice piece.


BLB

The commas/grammar issues have already been mentioned, so instead I'll give my 2 cents worth about story. It starts as a story about 2 brothers and the tension between them, and it should have stayed with the 2 brothers. I think you should keep the bully and hobo characters, but make sure you stay with the main characters' story. Tommy needs to be part of the ending somehow. How about having Tommy pick up the knife after the hobo drops it and he kills the hobo; the corpse is an actor and rises to see the commotion of the hobo being killed, then Tommy freaks out and kills the "zombie". Turning the story about the hobo as a psycho isn't nearly as compelling as keeping it about the brothers.

This story reminded me of the Twilight Zone series. One of those cautionary tales in which a prank goes way too far. I enjoyed it. However, I would have changed "who's the actor" to "who's your friend" and would have omitted everything involving the Old Lady. It's too revealing of the Rusty character. He went from being sociopathic to fully psychotic in the last few paragraphs. I like the story more when I thought Rusty was a crazy drifter rather than a serial murder.

Nevertheless, great job, Devin.